I'd Rather Hurt  Than Feel Nothing At All
by ibshafer
Summary: Dave contemplates Kurt's return to McKinley...


**Story: **I'd Rather Hurt (Then Feel Nothing At All)  
><strong>Fandom: <strong>Glee  
><strong>Author:<strong> ibshafer  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG-13 (language)

**Characters: **Dave,Kurt, Spanky McWhitey Pants, er, I mean _Blaine_, One-sided Kurtofsky

**Disclaimer:** I don't own these people, they own themselves and are just nice enough to let me spin them around the page now and then.  
><strong>Summary:<strong> Dave contemplates Kurt's return to McKinley  
><strong>Warnings:<strong> up to "Original Song" and including bits of the promo for NON  
><strong>AN:** Not my best, but I was just writing for that last line and working my way there. Had some fun playing in Dave's head, though… _Thx for reading!_

I'd Rather Hurt (Then Feel Nothing At All)

_- ibshafer_

He told himself he didn't care because he wanted it to be true.

Just like he told himself that he didn't feel _any_thing for Kurt Hummel and that he never _had_. (Why _would_ he?)

So it didn't matter to _Dave_ that Kurt was coming back to McKinley, other than he knew better than to harass him now. And it didn't matter that Kurt had a _boy_friend either – the glee losers had been chirping about it in the hallway – because it didn't matter to _him _who Kurt Hummel put his faggy lips on.

His _soft_ faggy lips.

His soft faggy lips that tasted a little like _mint_ and a little like something sweet Dave couldn't name, but that what_ever_ it was it had made his _own_ lips tingle just a little.

No, it didn't matter at all.

What _did _matter, though, was that Dave was a _terrible_ liar.

And he damn well fucking _knew _it…

[!SECTION BREAK!]

You'd think he'd be tired of feeling guilty by now. Like the way you get tired of chewing gum after a while, even if it's pineapple – his personal favorite, or like how good going back to school sounds after you've been out sick for a whole week - until you actually get there…

Guilt wasn't even something that _felt _good, so yeah, Dave couldn't figure out what his fascination was with it.

He felt guilty _all _the time.

He felt guilty for every single shitty thing he did.

Well, that wasn't _exactly_ true.

He only felt guilty about the things he'd done (and said) to Kurt Hummel…

One night after a game, he and Az were down in Az's basement smoking a little and playing Xbox and for a second, he'd thought he'd figured it all out…

A second later he dismissed it because it was just too stupid to be true.

His big _A-ha!_ moment?

That he, get this, _couldn't _give up his guilt because it was the only thing that tied him to Kurt Hummel. If he let _that_ go, Hummel'd be just another loser Dave had pushed around, one-in-a-million, no big deal, and Dave wouldn't have any right to think about him. No right to hope to talk to him. No right to want to. No _reason _to want to.

That guilt – and the unapologized apology – were all that remained between them.

Because sure as shit _Hummel _didn't want anything _else _from Hamhock Dave Karofsky.

A second later and Az was hollering as he blasted the last zombie into twitching bloody lumps, and then they were talking about who they liked in Sunday's big game and whether Puckerman was really doing Lauren Zizes or if she was doing _him _(with a strap-on), and after that there was just a lot laughing and more pot and the last of the Doritos and if Dave had had some sort of epiphany at some point that night, he sure as shit didn't remember it now.

_Later_ maybe, after the buzz had worn off and he was snoring on the pull-out in the Adams' basement, but now? Now he couldn't remember _anything_ about why he couldn't and _wouldn't_ stop feeling guilty about pushing Kurt Hummel around.

_Not a thing…_

[!SECTION BREAK!]

He was probably way past the point of lying to himself before he realized he wasn't doing it anymore. The day just came when he was thinking about touching Kurt Hummel and it made his heart _hurt_ and before he knew it he was curled up in a ball on the floor of his bedroom, wondering if he could get out of going to school today if he cried hard enough to make himself sick. He was pretty sure he could pull off the sick part.

Mom's wasn't buying it, though, mostly because by the time he stepped over the threshold from his bedroom (read: _safe zone_) into the hallway (read: _family expectation zone_), the lid that was there to seal his Real Feelings away had slammed closed automatically like it was designed to do, so when he faced his mom and he didn't look sick enough, she just looked at him like he was back in 7th grade trying to get out of going to school with some _other_ lame-ass excuse (he'd jacked off for the very first time in the shower that morning long ago and wanted to stay home so he could do it some more…) – and said flat-out _NO!_

If the word _'ironic'_ had been in Dave Karofsky's vocabulary, he might have thought it applied to the situation; he might have even thought there was _'synchronicity'_ to it, too, if he'd known what that one meant, because the inspiration for his 7th grade sick-day attempt? It was the same as today's.

_Kurt Hummel… _

Back then, it was those tight pink jeans Hummel'd worn to school the day before that had seemed all kinds of wrong, but that 13-year old Davey just couldn't get out of his head (and then had a wet dream about) and now it was about Hummel's upcoming _triumphant _return to McKinley, perfect, gel-headed boyfriend in tow. Two different kinds of pain, opposite ends of the body, _same effect._

But, hey, he was the master of the mask, right? Look how long he'd been gay in his head (he was even saying it to _himself_ now – _Jeez…_) and until he'd kissed Hummel's perfect, sweet-mint lips, _no one had known_…

Going to school should be easy, right? Really, what was the big deal?

Did he think Kurt _shouldn't_ have a boyfriend (who was perfect and spent as much time in front of the mirror as he did, when, hey, Dave didn't even _have_ a mirror in his bedroom…) or did he think _he _should be Kurt's boyfriend?

How would _that _work, anyway? If he weren't outright _killed _by Azimio and Strando and that asshole Taylor, then Hudson would probably smear him across the locker room floor for even _trying_. (Did Hudson know that he already _had_ tried, Dave wondered? Probably not or he'd be smeared already…)

What would Kurt Hummel want with a meathead like Dave anyway? What would they talk about? Where would they go? All Dave really wanted was to get to look at him as much as he wanted and to touch him and stuff and Dave was pretty sure that wouldn't be enough for Hummel. He'd want to talk about stuff like fashion and Hollywood and gay rights and stuff. He'd want to go places and look at things that would either put Dave to sleep or make him feel stupid, neither of which would lead to Dave getting to touch Hummel at all. (He imagined Hummel wouldn't like Dave falling asleep or getting angry when he felt stupid about shit.)

So since he'd already established it wouldn't work anyway, it shouldn't matter to _him_ that Hummel had himself a perfect little boyfriend to be all schmoopy with in the hallway (he figured Spanky McWhitey Pants would be around at some point, probably even Hummel's first day, what with Dave the Destroyer of Gay Innocence walking the halls of McKinley…) and _"Live and Let Live"_ was just going to have to be Dave's new motto.

He could pull it off, couldn't he?

He _could_.

He'd just tell Az that his parents had laid down the law the last time he got expelled and told him that if he got into any_more _trouble, particularly where widdle Kurtie was concerned, they were going to take away his Xbox _and _make him volunteer at the old folks home his mom was a nurse at. Az would believe that because it sounded like one of Dave's Dad's "life lessons" and also because Az knew old people gave Dave the wiggins…

So, he'd leave Kurtie and Spanky alone, he'd get Az off his back about Slushy detail, and he'd stay the hell away from "that" part of the building. ("That" part being the part where the glee losers were always prancing around – the choir room, the auditorium, and the stretch of hallway in between.)

And if he did pass Hummel in the hallway, well, he'd pretend he wasn't there, that he was just another kid. He wouldn't even look at him.

Except it was impossible _not _to look at him. He seemed to charge the air around him, draw the light in the room/hallway/parking lot _to _him, and heck, how can _any_one ignore all that light? Have you ever tried _not _looking at the one light shining in a pitch black room? You can't. It's like a physical impossibility or something.

So of course Dave would have had no _choice _but to look at Hummel as he flounced by wearing whatever crazy combination his faggy brain had dreamed up. (With Mrs. Ladyface in tow, because, you know, Dave imagined that through some uber-gay white- magic voo-doo ritual he and Kurt would now actually _be_ physically joined at the hip…)

He decided the best way to deal with it was to not deal with it at all. What did it actually have to do with him, anyway? Did he care of Jacob Ben Israel got himself some Jewish princess girlfriend? No, he did not. Did he care if crabby Patty who worked the steam trays in the cafeteria got herself a boyfriend? No, he did not. They were nothing to him, and neither was Kurt Hummel.

Truly, this 'dealing with it by not dealing with it thing' was shear genius.

Dave couldn't have been more impressed with himself if he'd just won the Superbowl for the Bears…

[!SECTION BREAK!]

_Fuck!_

Whoever it was that said he could just ignore the whole _Hummel Comes Home_ scenario was a fucking _moron_. Dave knew it wasn't _him_. Must have been his evil twin…

He was right about Spanky being in tow, though. Like, he and the gelled wonder actually had a _dick waving_ contest in the hallway that afternoon.

Spanky actually _grew_ a set to defend Kurt's honor, doing the Davey and Goliath thing ('cept Spanky was Davey) and _shoved _Dave across the hallway. Or, well, he _tried _to shove him across the hallway, but, well, Dave is _solid_ and it was only, like, a half step…

The whole thing was really kind of stupid, though, because Dave wasn't _doing _anything when it happened. He'd been going into the boys' room and Hummel was coming out and since he couldn't pretend he hadn't seen him, like he'd been doing all day, he's just said something stupid like, "Hey, Hummel" or something else just as brilliant and then Hummel, who didn't look happy to see him, but at least wasn't spitting nails this time, just said, "_Karofsky_" like those people in crime shows do, using a person's name as a way to say 'hello' back.

And Dave had just been about to ask him how his first day was going, when there he was, on his white horse, _Spanky McWhitey Pants_, to the rescue.

Spanky said something stupid (_waves dick_), and Dave said something stupid back (_waves dick harder_), and Spanky takes offense (well, he _actually _had every right to– Dave called him a _'gay 'tard'_…) and instead of waving his dick back, he up and plants two hands on Dave's chest and does his best to shove him into Monday.

If the situation weren't so damn annoying, and Hummel weren't looking so uppity-beautiful, Dave might have thought it was funny.

But it _was_ annoying and serious and _fuck_, he didn't think he'd ever seen Hummel's eyes that cold before; it like hurtto _look_ at him.

He had to get the fuck away from them. (They were holding hands now, like, for _support._) He'd be damned if he'd run off with his tail between his legs like some little girl, though, so he just thanked Spanky for the chest massage, said he needed to piss like a mother, and pushed past them both into the boys room. He stood there in the stall, fucking _stood there in the stall_, breathing like he'd just run a marathon and somehow holding his breath at the same time, trying to hear if they were talking outside the door (they were, for a second), trying to hear if they left (they did, but not right away), trying to see, through the crack in the stall's metal door, what they were doing on the other side of that frosted glass window (from the shape of it, _making-out_, it would seem)…

_And Dave just lost it. _

[!SECTION BREAK!]

Later that night and he was feeling like shit, but at least his head was clearer about some stuff.

He'd been right all along; he _was _fucked up.

Not about being gay, though, because clearly, it worked for some people – made them happy, made them less alone. Being gay shouldn't be the end of the world. His mom and dad loved him; they'd be okay with this as long as he was okay with it.

No, where he was fucked up was in that he just _reacted_ to stuff without thinking about it.

When he saw Kurt Hummel walk down the halls of McKinley like he owned them, which he _did, _rather than try to think of ways to talk to him because he _liked_ the idea of being owned by Kurt Hummel, he just reached out his big, meaty hand and pushed the kid into the lockers. And called him names. And stole stuff from him. And threw him on the floor.

Forty trillion years of evolution (he might have been wrong about that number) and Dave Karofsky had more in common with a caveman than he did with modern man.

What'd he think? That he could rough Hummel up, then drag him back to his cave for a little man-love?

So he'd _been_ fucked up and it had _made_ him fuck up and now, there was no _un_-fucking it all.

Spanky could grow a horn on his forehead or turn out to be a mass murderer and even then, broken and alone, Hummel wouldn't want him.

Hummel was never going to see him as anything more than the asshole that bullied him and chased him out of the school.

He was never going to see Dave as a good guy; as a guy worthy of someone like Kurt Hummel.

And Dave didn't _deserve_ it.

Because he _had_ fucked up. He'd been an asshole. A prick. A loser.

He had no right to expect anything from the kid. Not even _forgiveness_.

Of course, there was the chance Hummel _would _forgive him and _then_ what would Dave have?

This guilt…_this guilt_ was all there was ever going to be between them, the only thing he would ever get to share with fucking beautiful Kurt Hummel.

And he guessed that was okay.

Because Dave was thinking, in the end, he'd rather _hurt_, then feel nothing at all…

Fini

7


End file.
